Stewart, Newman Wreck in Final Practice
February 14th, 2009 by 
glm
DAYTONA BEACH, FLA. — Anyone wearing a Goodyear logo was best advised to stay away from Tony Stewart on Saturday.
During the final practice for Sunday’s Daytona 500, Stewart’s teammate Ryan Newman lost a right rear tire and crashed in turn 2. The crash collected Stewart, and thanks to the damage that was deemed unfixable for such an aerodynamic track, both drivers went to backup cars for Sunday’s race.
As a result, they will both start at the end of the field for Sunday’s race, though that wasn’t the primary focal point of Stewart’s anger.
Instead, Stewart lit into Goodyear about their tires much like he did following the 2008 Sprint Cup race in Atlanta. He felt that the construction and design of the tire was not suitable for NASCAR, but he also acknowledged nothing will ever change about it because Goodyear is NASCAR’s exclusive tire supplier.
Later, however, Stewart’s remarks were somewhat shot down by Goodyear’s chief of worldwide racing Stu Grant. Grant, during a press conference after the wreck, said that all the evidence on the shredded tire pointed to tire failure due to Newman running over a foreign object on the track. Nothing, Grant said, about the remaining rubber idicated the tire simply wore too fast and exploded.
Regardless, Stewart and Newman are in backup cars for the 500 and have provided a headlining story heading into tomorrow’s race that had been previously lacking.
